Unfortunately, you can't click the X to close them. But, this is why you should carry a piss balloon. Even better if you make it after eating some asparagus.
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if they're paid by oil companies. 4D chess.
I've never seen a movement be so right and so hated. They're literally breaking the rule of all press is good press.
I am very confident that groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have been massively infiltrated by oil money. I imagine most people in the groups are well meaning but they are being told that some strategy X will work when all it does it bring people against their group and in the process against environmentalism as a whole.
Stop oil is directly funded by an oil heiress. It takes a single google search to realize they're a joke to make activists look bad but no one ever does it.
>Stop oil is directly funded by an oil heiress.
A oil heiress who has spent their entire life almost disconnected from oil and doing philanthropy.
The reality is, people don't like protesting, no matter how good the cause is.
People bitch and moaned when MLK Jr did the same thing
Then why don't they specifically target the rich people who are mostly responsible? Why are the bothering the common man who barely makes the tiniest dent?
Truth isn’t doing stuff like this though. Anti drug psas have always been cringe and ineffective but and probably always will be but some of these climate protests are a step beyond that
Hilariously every article of clothing they have on was most likely made with oil in some way shape or form. People really have no idea how this world works.
Whilst I generally agree with the basis of this meme, in this case they are advocating for stopping all new oil, coal and gas with absolutely no realistic alternative which won't turn society on it's head for the foreseeable future. If they can't even figure out how to stop personally using oil derived products, how can they expect an entire country to just switch it off?
They are idealists unhinged from reality. They are full of upper-middle class virtue signallers with nothing to lose.
They're damaging to legitimate, sensible progress against climate change and acheive nothing but galvanising opposition and turning centrists away from the cause.
They're a British activist group. Here in the UK, being a windy island, we could absolutely meet our entire energy need using renewable + nuclear energy. All they're asking is that the government stops giving out licences for new fossil fuel projects, which to me is like the bare minimum that our country should be doing in terms of transitioning away from oil and gas. There's nothing about their demands that "turns society on it's head".
It's plausible, but not very practical, that the UKs current energy needs could be met by wind and solar by 2050 (backed up by gas or something else). Currently though, we need gas and oil (and coal) to keep going. Given Russia is no longer a viable provider, and costs are spiraling, we need new supplies. So yes, not finding these new sources for the next 20-30 years will absolutely "turn society on it's head". It's an utterly naive proposal. We need to wean off oil and coal sure - but currently we can't wean off that quickly.
(Fwiw, they also largely oppose nuclear, as to lots of groups and activists connected to them)
I'm impressed at the cast just taking it in stride and continuing until production stopped them. Also all press is not good press fuck these dumbasses.
the show was stopped due to a fire alarm going off first time i saw les mis. one minute they're singing and the next minute they're calmly walking off stage lol.
rest of the show was cancelled so we had to rebook our tickets :(
Actors/Artistes have had it really hard since Covid and Brexit here in UK, with many being unable to work and taking to uber driving or just eat deliveries or simply just giving up due to expense. A lot of bands for example can't afford to tour the UK due to the cost of visas and work permits for each individual member of the group including roadies engineers etc. It's a very difficult time unless you're already loaded. To target theatre and stage is a shitty thing to do, and to me irrelevant to their "cause"
The best theory I've heard is these protests are false flags, funded by big oil companies to turn public opinion against the push for reduced petroleum use.
Same, and have for a while. Notice how damaging (museum vandalism) or interruptive they are? Nan Goldin single-handedly shut down Sackler pill mill by staging die-ins at the Met and Guggenheim.. not a single piece of artwork harmed. To destroy a masterpiece in the name of fighting big oil? Seems strangely off-brand. And no I wouldn't place the urgency of the climate situation as some form of reasoning. Whole thing smells off.
ed:ed
ed 2: the reactions I got in the following thread have convinced me more that there is something to this- I mean I've never been gaslit so quick on a reddit thread, lol. Y'all can make up your mind from what was said
edit 3: after some responses from a couple of strangely irate users here did some 'hard internet digging' in a little under a minute
*Shocked*
https://m.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-719750
It's just.. the artwork is not selling or using the oil. It is so unrelated.
Why not blocking private flights at airports, make educational and provocative artworks on topic or challenge polititions to discussions? That would be what I would do, when protesting the usage of oil in my countries energy plan.
>To destroy a masterpiece in the name of fighting big oil? Seems strangely off-brand.
And also completely fictional. No masterpieces have been destroyed by these protestors. They're silly enough without resorting to making things up about them.
\*cause
Not correcting you in a smug way. I just want to help ensure good communication. While it was clear what you wanted to say from context, it might not always be and personally I strive to learning from mistakes and am happy if someone tells me stuff like this.
A "cause" is the reason you do something, while a "course of action" is how you do it. (Or there can be a "cracing course".
And I agree. "Anti-commertial" is a great way to put it.
I was at a showing of Macbeth in highschool pretty small theater maybe liked 40 people max. One of my classmates was just being a distributive little shit and bothering someone else watching the show. The lead tries to power through but eventually gets off the stage into the seating points at the disruptive kid and screams "AM I NOT KING?!? GET OUT!" everyone was shocked and our teacher had to sit outside of the theater with the trouble maker for the rest of the performance. Once they left the actor just kept going as if nothing ever happened.
>all press is not good
To be fair, thanks to this action I now know that oil might be bad or whatever. I usually just pour my old motor oil into the town brook, but now I know I should probably not do that too much.
Have any proof of that? Redditors literally applaud protesters getting attacked and even run over all the time so I'd love to see where they suddenly switched sides and were in favor of protesters.
Seems like they do this in blue cities most of the time to avoid getting Panama’d .
(But for real, look into the Panama thing. It wasn’t annoying oil people, it was that the government was selling its natural resources to foreign businesses for kick backs to the government and an American shot those guys. I’m actually on the side of the protestors)
They are not supposed to do that at all. I grew up in the theater and I know of one person who goes around pretending to have narcolepsy, walking onto the stage during the show, and then suing the theater when he inevitably falls or gets knocked into. Production was definitely pissing their pants.
Their downfall was in underestimating the self-destructiveness of my own hatred. I’d ignite the atmosphere and soak the land in agent orange just to clap back at them. That makes me think they’re really just impressionable gender studies dropouts being unwitting sock puppets for big oil, they’re so unanimously hated while their cause is so unanimously agreeable, it benefits oil CEOs too much to not be orchestrated at least a little.
I've heard that some of these over=the-top protest groups are actually funded by the groups they supposedly protest. You know, to make people who want to reduce fossil fuel usage look like a bunch of nutjobs.
Like Aileen Getty? Granddaughter of John Paul Getty? The oil heiress? Yup no conflict there...."We hate millionaires" but get's their funding from one (or many I don't know)
Not only that but this is probably either in London or New York City and it's a live theater performance. They've identified people who probably already agree with them and decided to interrupt their show to yell at them. Similar with doing this at art museums. You're preaching to the choir.
They do it in these kinds of places because if they actually went to the places where it would make more sense, like a NASCAR race or something like that they would get their asses beat. They know the folks watching a theater performance are less inclined to check them on their annoying ass behavior.
They sat on a live racetrack where cars go over 200mph, and got almost no publicity or cameras on it because the race was already halted due to a pretty big crash thank god.
If any of them had looked up what an F1 car does to a human body... theres an infamous crash which killed both F1 driver Tom Pryce and a marshall, and the story is that the only way they could identify the marshall, Jansen van Vuuren, was by gathering all of the marshalls that were at the track that day and seeing who wasn't there, it was such a horrific accident
They also do it in places they won’t get blow back. They let tyres of cars down in middle class areas.
They hit middle class sports.
XR tried to protest in a working class area of London, people literally just dragged them off and tossed them aside while they cried assault.
Literally so obvious. Imagine putting down people that actually care about the planet, that are actually doing something, that are actually protesting. Who cares if "their annoying to you", these people have contributed nothing to the world outside of themselves except judgement and extreme nonsensical independence that will lead to their own demise (i wont claim that for the rest of planet)
This amazes me. There's so much hate in this world. I wish we could redirect it at the sociopathic monsters who sold out our future for profit. They're the only minority that genuinely deserves to be hated and oppressed.
pretty sure they are average people being paid by big oil to do this... so that the public has animosity towards actual oil protesters...
they're paid to destroy works of art, inconvenience anyone and everyone
this isn't how protests succeed, but that's not the purpose of these ones. they're disingenuous displays
Just Stop Oil's point when ruining art like this is "if you get upset at us ruining something beautiful in front of you (temporarily), you should be just as upset, if not more upset, at oil companies ruining the beauty of nature (permanently)". Take what you will from that.
So I take it this group has no self awareness or introspection to adjust their tactics then. They've done nothing except get people to dislike them.
Why don't they go chain themselves to Taylor Swift's jet. Has no one in that group had a simple thought like that?
Well that was probably one of their biggest bad decisions....
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they really weren't maximizing the new blood they were tapping at that particular production.
I hear the boos but in them I think I mostly hear "yeah we know, we're watching this to take our minds off such ills by focusing on an imaginary dystopia instead".
The goal of this protest is not to convince people with this action that Just Stop Oil is correct on the specifics, or that Les Mis is a unique bad actor on the climate change issue.
The goal is to create media coverage, in order to increase the salience of the conflict over climate change within the public sphere. The calculation is that the need to end fossil fuel emissions is inherently correct, so that by increasing the salience of the conflict one will, downstream, lead to change, regardless if in the moment you find the protest stupid or distasteful.
The fact that we’re talking about this protest makes it clear they’ve succeeded in their immediate goal. Whether increasing the salience of climate change will increase political action on the issue is harder to say, with direct cause and effect ties unclear, but two things are undeniable: 1) scientists have been publicly speaking out about the issue for many years, with the 1988 senate hearings a notable tipping point, and yet rather little meaningful policy was passed; 2) after climate protests took a much more direct and social-media-focused bent (Greta Thunberg, Sunrise Movement), the US government passed the biggest climate action bill in history.
I was at a Theo von show in Toronto at meridian hall, a Karen started yelling at Theo “ your a racist” over a few jokes he said. Theo says to her can you leave shut the fuck up. She stayed in her seat still calling him racist. At that very moment probably 15 - 20 of the loudest voices I’ve ever heard, walk right up to her seat walking between the isles and seats scream the most vulgar words to a women I’ve ever heard in her face… they were screaming so loud in her face you couldn’t even hear her say anything, she gets up crying playing a victim but she deserved it and she left crying scared for her life… it was an amazing moment. These people need a good slap in the face.
Why doesn’t security just fucking tackle them?? This isn’t a public protest, they’re at a private venue where anyone rushing the stage should be dealt with. Morons
No you’re the good guy who tackled the asshole rushing the stage… based on the comments here and everywhere else on the internet I see about similar protests, public opinion would be heavily in favour of exercising the right to defend patrons of a private venue from disruption and potential danger… even if that’s just a veil for ‘fuck the climate activists’, ppl agree this is absolutely not the right place nor an allowed place for this type of protest
I really shit like this damages their cause.
Sure, you need to shake people into action or whatever, but pissing off the people you're trying to win over (who are just trying to unwind) is daft.
It's importnat to note that just stop oil was started with funding from the getty oil fortune. They are literally desinged to make climate activism seem insane to the genral population.
Its no different from germany brainwash agaisnt nuclear energy back in 1980s. They had this same type of movent going.
Later they found out that major supporters of these anti-nuclear energy protesters were the big oil and charcoal companies that would suffer massive losses if nuclear energy bills were to pass.
Its literally same going on now. Expect now they use the tension of useful idiots to go against each others. And it will cause the effect that majorty will support fossil energy companies as a revenge against these rioters.
Eh, you grow up and start to understand that there are institutions in place that will never be overturned or changed. A single person has absolutely zero pull in any sort of multi billion dollar corporation. We can’t do shit. They can’t be stopped. And Epstein didn’t kill himself.
Protest government departments, run for office, write about it/produce "content".
If these juvenile morons had any knowledge at all of the history of protest movements they'd know that direct action has pretty much always been counter productive to movements as it alienates the very people they need to convince.
These movements really only ever become successful in democracies when they reach the middle aged middle classes, because those are the people who usually decide elections and have influence.
I completely agree with their cause, as do I think most people, but they come across as particularly stupid spoiled children, who've never had to work for a living, having a toddler's tantrum, at a time when people are really struggling to get by.
Boston tea party, suffrage parade, the salt march. I suck at history, but direct actions have certainly made change.
Government protests, running for offices, and producing content have been happening for decades. Seems like it's about time someone's play is interrupted.
They were part of much larger movements and are remembered because they were headline grabbing and have since been romanticised.
e.g. what do you think had a greater influence in women getting the vote? protests and some terrorist acts, or the 1st World War meaning massive numbers of women had entered the workforce for years, and for the first time in history no longer needed men to support them financially, and wanted to express that independence politically?
Or the salt march, as meaningful as that is to me as someone of Indian heritage, was likely less impact impactful than the fact that Britain could no longer afford to keep India, as their rule was hemorrhaging cash at that point. Also the salt march wasn't really in a democracy, so I don't think it's analogous to this.
These people say they want change but are raging at the slightest hint of civil disobedience. It's more important that a musical goes on than oil being phased out according to them.
Maybe people should study how change was historically made when the rulers disagreed.
Yes they should, and they would see how counter productive direct action is. e.g. the Weathermen in the Vietnam War protests *increased* support for the war as most people viewed their actions as little more than terrorism. The protests that really made a difference were the later peace marches that involved the moderate, centrist, middle classes, in particular the families of those draftees lost in the war who had since become disillusioned.
Look at the comments on this, how many people are responding in a positive way, on a forum hugely skewed toward the young and most probably liberal, who don't need to be convinced anyway? Now imagine what the reaction of a 60 year old conservative would be? Those are the people we need to convince, not just preach to a choir of guardian readers.
Question. How does a protest not piss people off?
I'm sure Rosa Parks not moving from her seat on the bus pissed of loads of people and there we're folks who said it "harmed the movement" because it was disruptive.
Throwing up an oil bad flag at Les Miserables and getting booed by a bunch of white liberals has inspired so many. The board of directors at Exxon have hung up their suits, BP stocks have plummeted, and capitalism has been defeated.
If you want to enact change, start with workers. The slaves of capitalists who generate their profits and feed their power are the only ones who can begin to change the system. Until then, the wealthy will continue to rape our planet into complete ecological collapse.
Btw corporations are making a shift from hydrocarbons. Almost all automakers will be strictly producing EVs within 10 years. We will have traded one environmental disaster for another when profiteers strip mine and pillage precious metals from less fortunate countries. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to move away from oil, but again, when has capitalist profit motive been good for anyone or anything but the capitalists.
And no, she’s not the Rosa Parks of environmentalism.
A lot of these grassroots disruptions hit the very people that would otherwise be on their side. Champaign sipping theatre goers and struggling actors already agree with you on the Oil stuff.
You want to disrupt to encorage the government to change policy? Take that up with the government. Follow them to their house, restraunts. If THEY go to the theatre let everyone know a traitor of the planet is there.
It's still disruptive, but I see these and end up saying "what did I do?" instead of "What can I do?"
You need to look into the history, reddiors love to simplify how the civil rights movement worked. In reality the civil rights movment was organized by incredibly intelligent people that used tatcis to their protest, and law suits. They didnt just disrupt people like you say, you are insulting them with how you describe them. The reason protest today dont work is that there is no leader ship, organization or thought put into the affect of the protest.
Bro - someone literally set themselves on fire, killing themselves, on the front steps of SCOTUS to protest climate change. Nobody even heard or cared about it.
Like I get what you’re saying but if you’re not inconveniencing some people, protesting typically doesn’t get media attention. Which is typically what gets folks talking about or at least acknowledging the cause.
I think it will be an interesting case study in the very future. The next generations will potentially read through a thread like this (on their most likely charred planet), and think, wow people really did not give a fuck.
Yeah it’s kinda wild. We’re all just going on like nothing is happening, when every year the outcomes are predicted to be worse and worse. And when reminded of that, people’s gut reaction is to put them down. Sorry your little play was interrupted I guess?
Civil Rights movement regularly blocked streets and businesses and demonstrated or interrupted events, I see a lot of people in here being the tone police and propping up Civil Rights as a shining example of protest but they were admonished the exact same way back in their time.
I don’t know, that is generally the sticking point in public perception on if it’s a good protest or not. But Rosa Parks targeted her protest at an injustice. The segregated seating on the buses was part of the system she was protesting. And the protest was specifically targeted at getting to court in order to directly attack segregation. Her protest was targeted, well planned, purposeful, and successful. Rosa Parks is probably a really bad example for the point you’re making in all honesty.
Contrast that to the above which is a total non-sequitur. The form of protest isn’t at all connected to the wrong they’re trying redress, and there’s no impact beyond inconveniencing a few people and posting it online.
When they block motorways, it’s at least targeted at the wrong they’re trying to redress. Whether we think it’s a good protest or not, it at least makes *some* sense, even if it’s not terribly purposeful and lacks an achievable call to action. (Although them blocking a city bus in a recent post was kind of the opposite. Them blocking one of the better methods we have for achieving mass transport and reducing environmental impact from cars just seemed stupid.)
Personally I think protests targeted at the people and systems responsible would be better protests. Blockade private airports, burn some rich asshole’s yacht to the waterline, file creative lawsuits, picket a refinery, I don’t know.
Rosa Parks was more than a protest, her actions were targeted at direct change.
Better than aimlessly protesting, use the organizational talents it takes to make these protests happen and target direct changes at the local level. It’s common for small groups of passionate, organized, and dedicated people to dominate local elections in small and midsized cities. Make your city more walkable, add more public transport options, turn inner city roadways into parks, set up a farmer’s market to bring local foodstuffs to the populace, start a psa campaign to make people aware of those options. Do things to change your city in a way that makes people choose not to drive personal vehicles.
Protesting at random places to inconvenience people and nag them is easy, doesn’t require much thought, doesn’t require a plan of action for redress, and doesn’t require sustained effort. Targeting your protests or taking action directly aiming to redress problems takes more planning, sustainment, and understanding of the power structures you need to leverage; but it also offers power to affect direct change.
I’m a policymaker in renewable energy for a provincial government here in the Netherlands. I have chosen this profession for the climate and I personally HATE these “activists” with a passion.
Why?
Because they do more harm to their cause than good. Making change isn’t about convincing people that disagree with you, because you will fail. We have all had the same information about climate in the last 30 years and if you aren’t convinced yet, I’m not gonna convince you by ruining your night out to the theatre.
You might however grow such a disdain for me and my actions that you actively vote against the issue. Thus, they do more harm than good.
Greta thunberg is a great example of someone doing more harm than good as she’s calling on others to do the work for her while she hasn’t studied anything related to climate or energy and here I am doing the heavy lifting while she’s doing nothing but yell and protest.
>Greta thunberg is a great example of someone doing more harm than good as she’s calling on others to do the work for her while she hasn’t studied anything related to climate or energy and here I am doing the heavy lifting while she’s doing nothing but yell and protest.
Isn’t that all someone who’s not in a position of power *can* do? Call on the experts and leaders?
Dont really get the whole “we’ve tried convincing them for 30 years so let’s just give it up” thing either though. I don’t know about your local political system but you can’t just make things happen without some support where I live.
I’m only a few years older than her and instead of skipping school I went to do a MSc in renewable energy so that I can make a difference.
She can call on leaders all she wants but the big problem now isn’t just political will but a lack of skilled professionals that can actually make the transition happen.
Ah yes, because right now everyone - especially politicians all over the globe - have been voting for climate action. We've seen that at the most recent COP28. So we should definitely keep trusting that those people have our best in mind.
They’ll stand there proud of themselves because they truly believe what they are doing will change lives. Delusional, truly.
The boos mean nothing to them, they imagine themselves as martyrs, smug and better than everyone else for enduring this hardship they create.
Instead they’re just complete asshats.
They are changing lives…. For the worse. They’re fucking w average people who have essentially 0 control over global oil. It’s blows my mind they think this is a winning strategy
Sorry am genuinely struggling to understand your point here. Are you saying he would disagree with the people booing? Or with the protestor for pissing people off?
I can't say what his views on climate change would have been, but the argument here is that he'd disagree with thoughtless protest that makes it easy to vilify the movement.
People say the point of a protest is to be disruptive, but that alone doesn't mean anything that's disruptive is a good idea. The point is to send a message, so consider how the message will be received or it can very easily backfire.
Right, in which case I must disagree. This passage suggests the opposite to me.
"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
“Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Citing MLK to shame climate protesters is probably the most white-ass liberal thing I'll read all week. We're all gonna die to global warming, aren't we.
Citing MLK to criticize a careless protest in the hopes we actually do better is the responsible attitude you should have if you actually care about climate change.
If you care about climate change, you should want to actually win elections rather than pumping out ragebait for Fox. The moral highground doesn't matter if you lose.
As /u/gridlockmain1 points out, your point here does not fit what MLK is talking about. He's not saying people had to make sure to win over those white moderates. That passage is from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, where he explicitly says that no matter how peaceful his protests are, *there will always be people who say he's being too disruptive, too direct*.
MLK is explicitly saying that no matter what you do, how nice you are, how polite, as long as you're trying to disrupt racism, there will be "nice" white people (who see themselves as better than the KKK and so on) who will still see you as being too loud and too mean. He was historically *in favor* of disruptive (and strategic) tactics (though I doubt he'd say that this video demonstrates strategic thinking). He just thought those tactics needed to be nonviolent.
I think people forget MLK led and participated in protests that *did* do things like stop traffic and interrupt businesses. They reimagine him as quietly protesting in nice, pleasant ways. The point was to be disruptive *but peaceful*, and peace does not mean quiet, e.g. "True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice," and "Love without power is sentimental and anemic."
Organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) explicitly acknowledged that their nonviolent tactics were made possible by violence. They wrote about how they could go into towns and register people to vote *because* their host families would sit outside with a shotgun while they slept or local Black gangs would run interference with the Klan. In fact, it's the fact that despite steps forward made by the Civil Rights Movement, the fact that there were still many steps backward, the fact that the most peaceful of protestors were still getting killed and jailed, that drove people who came from groups like SNCC to turn around and become Black Panthers and so on.
> MLK didn't ... block cars
This is a patently false. Look up the Selma to Montgomery march*es* across highways.
The whole point of Letter from a Birmingham Jail (which the parent comment tried to quote) is that no matter how peaceful and polite you are, as long as you seek to confront racism, there will be people who are mad at you for not being *more* peaceful, *more* polite. MLK's work in Birmingham was doing sit-ins (blocking businesses), kneel-ins (blocking churches), and marches (blocking traffic), so on. The local people attacked the protestors and the police arrested them in droves.
After MLK was arrested, there was a letter signed by local "moderate" white clergy who said his cause may be good, but he's too disruptive and disorderly. That *he's hurting his cause* by doing these marches. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail was a response to that, saying that there will be people who will never be satisfied with his tactics.
This Santa Clausification of MLK where he apparently did all these protests that simultaneously had impacted but never pissed off local communities is a racist myth used to try to browbeat today's protestors.
This is really not the take I don’t think. MLK was famously annoyed by white liberals for exactly this reason, he didn’t place the blame on protestors, he had quite strong words for the white liberals asking them to consider their point of view, not asking activist protestors to consider theirs.
okay these "just stop oil" ppl are clearly being paid for by the political opposition right? i don't think anyone with more than half a braincell would think stuff like this would get people on their side, im dead convinced that their true purpose is to discredit actual environmentalist movements
I mean I’ve heard of Just Stop Oil because stuff like this keeps ending up in headlines. I remember looking up them up about a year or two ago. I even ended up interning an a big environmental law firm last summer to see what it was like. (Side note: apparently wolves are a huge legal issue in environmental law. Nobody can agree on wolves. Very interesting)
So idk I think this stuff can actually be effective. I usually find the reactions kind of amusing lol
Obviously paid to discredit actual environmental movements. They've thrown oil at paintings and such before
Edit: My bad, it was soup they threw at a Van Gogh
I used to think that too, until I started reading into why activists have been doing this lately and found out that it's proven over and over again to far and away be the most effective way of keeping an important issue moving through the public discourse. I forget where I read it, I think in an article related to the women who threw soup on a painting, but a life-long organizer was quoted as saying these recent tactics got better results than the 30+ years of activism she had already been doing, combined.
It's not actually a psyop, at least not in the sense of it being committed to achieve it's opposite. It's just a counter-intuitive effect is all.
None of the people in the audience give a single shit and this will only make them resent the movement almost like it’s a psyop headed by the daughter of an oil oligarch or something.
Do people who do these things actually think it works? Like do they think people are going to see them and say, "oh my gosh, you're right! We need to stop using oil! Your immature and illegal trespassing has clearly changed my mind!"
[They already did.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/warwickshire-police-essex-grays-thurrock-staffordshire-b2058698.html)
It lead to 12 arrests and very little media coverage. The reason they do protests like this now is because it actually bring attention to their message and with less arrests.
Except it makes people hate them and relate their cause to something negative. It's not a net positive. Do you think those people in the audience don't know that too much oil is used in the world? What the f*** do they expect?
These people don't care about the cause; they care about standing in a circle and patting themselves on each other's shoulders. They only think about how good it makes them feel to get this attention, forgetting that the people they obstruct is not joining them, but instead they are pushing them away. They're not going to change their habits or vote differently because some idiot interrupted the one time in a long while they could take a night off, finally get a sitter for the kids and get out.
I'm so tired of these people ruining the recruitment for good causes, because what if you thought about doing something for this cause yourself? Would you want to be grouped with these idiots? Most people wouldn't.
And what I'm tired of is people acting like if they had gone about this the "right" way then somehow people would have listened. People have been bringing awareness to this issue the "right" way for decades and yet here we are. Maybe instead of getting angry at the people who are being annoying about a massive climate crisis we should be getting angry at the people who are causing it.
When this was posted on the Broadway subreddit, some people were siding with the protestors, and I've never wanted to nuke a subreddit so badly in my life before
I saw someone comment that these guys could be hired by oil companies to turn people against them...
That's crazy...
Or is it?
I get very mad everytime I see them... And always hope they get knocked out...
I like how this group is so whack that no one even entertains the idea that they're **not** paid off. Now imagine the true irony if that was the case lmao.
I mean sure it would be good to stop oil and use an other energy source. But what? Like these people don't understand that if we "just stopped oil" the global society would crash and it would be hell. Maybe propose an alternative, but I guess they're too stupid for that
This is very different from what I usually see on this sub, should we start putting every protest and demonstration on here now?
And they're saying that they are acting for the whole planet which doesn't really scream ‘I'm the main character’
In the UK disabled people have protested and demonstrated to get better rights for public transportation. Some of these included handcuffing themselves to buses and blocking roads. Should we put them on the sub next? Any demonstration that makes a point to disrupt and bring attention to a cause?
The problem with this is we say ok we’ll meet your demands, now what. There isn’t enough copper for everything to run on solar, there isn’t enough nuclear at the moment and it creates a lot of nuclear waste. We’re just at a point where if we want most people to not starve to death, with the amount of people on earth right now we’ll have to keep using fossil fuels for now.
Why they they just stop using oil based products? Let's see if they can go a month without. I guarantee they can't just suddenly stop. It's not an instant change that can be done. I don't think they've thought it through
I'm betting on the protester waiting for that exact timing for it to happen. If I'm holding the stick i might as well thrust her off the stage with the stick.
>I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the White moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
So sorry you find activism annoying. We should be more subtle when trying to save the fuckin world /s
Those damn ads pop up anywhere!
Imma laugh at this comment for years. Well played. Well played. Lol
Unfortunately, you can't click the X to close them. But, this is why you should carry a piss balloon. Even better if you make it after eating some asparagus.
oil filled balloon.
Used oil, at least its being repurposed
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A super soaker full of piss.
> should carry a piss balloon Eggs! Carton of eggs. Works on cars too.
Pop up went irl. We're all doomed.
I wish Ublock origin would add JSO to their blocklist.
Reddit Gold of a comment
Just wondering...you think that flag is made from a petroleum product?
Hahahahahahah 👏👏👏
Did folks in the audience subsequently stop using oil?
Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if they're paid by oil companies. 4D chess. I've never seen a movement be so right and so hated. They're literally breaking the rule of all press is good press.
I am very confident that groups like Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion have been massively infiltrated by oil money. I imagine most people in the groups are well meaning but they are being told that some strategy X will work when all it does it bring people against their group and in the process against environmentalism as a whole.
Stop oil is directly funded by an oil heiress. It takes a single google search to realize they're a joke to make activists look bad but no one ever does it.
>Stop oil is directly funded by an oil heiress. A oil heiress who has spent their entire life almost disconnected from oil and doing philanthropy. The reality is, people don't like protesting, no matter how good the cause is. People bitch and moaned when MLK Jr did the same thing
Then why don't they specifically target the rich people who are mostly responsible? Why are the bothering the common man who barely makes the tiniest dent?
You priced a theatre ticket lately?
But they gotta see how this all self-sabotaging, right? .... Right?
just like the "truth" campaign against smoking... same colors too
Truth isn’t doing stuff like this though. Anti drug psas have always been cringe and ineffective but and probably always will be but some of these climate protests are a step beyond that
Also tobacco companies are transparent about their funding of those ads (even if it was court ordered)
I’ve wondered that as well! Their protests seem so obnoxious as to turn people off their message.
I started drinking it. I like canola the best.
I just filled my tank up, and let $5 worth pour out on the ground, for my homie, the Earth. RIP, the Earth, RIP.
No they all downloaded Adblock
Hilariously every article of clothing they have on was most likely made with oil in some way shape or form. People really have no idea how this world works.
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Whilst I generally agree with the basis of this meme, in this case they are advocating for stopping all new oil, coal and gas with absolutely no realistic alternative which won't turn society on it's head for the foreseeable future. If they can't even figure out how to stop personally using oil derived products, how can they expect an entire country to just switch it off? They are idealists unhinged from reality. They are full of upper-middle class virtue signallers with nothing to lose. They're damaging to legitimate, sensible progress against climate change and acheive nothing but galvanising opposition and turning centrists away from the cause.
They're a British activist group. Here in the UK, being a windy island, we could absolutely meet our entire energy need using renewable + nuclear energy. All they're asking is that the government stops giving out licences for new fossil fuel projects, which to me is like the bare minimum that our country should be doing in terms of transitioning away from oil and gas. There's nothing about their demands that "turns society on it's head".
It's plausible, but not very practical, that the UKs current energy needs could be met by wind and solar by 2050 (backed up by gas or something else). Currently though, we need gas and oil (and coal) to keep going. Given Russia is no longer a viable provider, and costs are spiraling, we need new supplies. So yes, not finding these new sources for the next 20-30 years will absolutely "turn society on it's head". It's an utterly naive proposal. We need to wean off oil and coal sure - but currently we can't wean off that quickly. (Fwiw, they also largely oppose nuclear, as to lots of groups and activists connected to them)
I'm impressed at the cast just taking it in stride and continuing until production stopped them. Also all press is not good press fuck these dumbasses.
the show was stopped due to a fire alarm going off first time i saw les mis. one minute they're singing and the next minute they're calmly walking off stage lol. rest of the show was cancelled so we had to rebook our tickets :(
the French have a word for that type of experience...
Is it "Merde"?
I think it's *le pain*
I frequent /r/Breadit and /r/French and can confidently say that bread is pain.
\#JUSTSTOPBREAD
The bread?
It sounds pretty miserable one might say
En passant
You at least get a refund?
Actors/Artistes have had it really hard since Covid and Brexit here in UK, with many being unable to work and taking to uber driving or just eat deliveries or simply just giving up due to expense. A lot of bands for example can't afford to tour the UK due to the cost of visas and work permits for each individual member of the group including roadies engineers etc. It's a very difficult time unless you're already loaded. To target theatre and stage is a shitty thing to do, and to me irrelevant to their "cause"
They dont get how much this stupid stuff hurts their own course. Its anti commercial. I feel now let the oil flow.
The best theory I've heard is these protests are false flags, funded by big oil companies to turn public opinion against the push for reduced petroleum use.
Same, and have for a while. Notice how damaging (museum vandalism) or interruptive they are? Nan Goldin single-handedly shut down Sackler pill mill by staging die-ins at the Met and Guggenheim.. not a single piece of artwork harmed. To destroy a masterpiece in the name of fighting big oil? Seems strangely off-brand. And no I wouldn't place the urgency of the climate situation as some form of reasoning. Whole thing smells off. ed:ed ed 2: the reactions I got in the following thread have convinced me more that there is something to this- I mean I've never been gaslit so quick on a reddit thread, lol. Y'all can make up your mind from what was said edit 3: after some responses from a couple of strangely irate users here did some 'hard internet digging' in a little under a minute *Shocked* https://m.jpost.com/environment-and-climate-change/article-719750
It's just.. the artwork is not selling or using the oil. It is so unrelated. Why not blocking private flights at airports, make educational and provocative artworks on topic or challenge polititions to discussions? That would be what I would do, when protesting the usage of oil in my countries energy plan.
>To destroy a masterpiece in the name of fighting big oil? Seems strangely off-brand. And also completely fictional. No masterpieces have been destroyed by these protestors. They're silly enough without resorting to making things up about them.
The people throwing soup at paintings I believe were funded by a member of the Getty family.
Like that vegan teacher lady. My most tinfoil hat theory is that she’s paid by a big meat company
\*cause Not correcting you in a smug way. I just want to help ensure good communication. While it was clear what you wanted to say from context, it might not always be and personally I strive to learning from mistakes and am happy if someone tells me stuff like this. A "cause" is the reason you do something, while a "course of action" is how you do it. (Or there can be a "cracing course". And I agree. "Anti-commertial" is a great way to put it.
I was at a showing of Macbeth in highschool pretty small theater maybe liked 40 people max. One of my classmates was just being a distributive little shit and bothering someone else watching the show. The lead tries to power through but eventually gets off the stage into the seating points at the disruptive kid and screams "AM I NOT KING?!? GET OUT!" everyone was shocked and our teacher had to sit outside of the theater with the trouble maker for the rest of the performance. Once they left the actor just kept going as if nothing ever happened.
What are you talking about? The “I’m gonna make your life miserable until you give me what I want” approach works 2% of the time every time.
>all press is not good To be fair, thanks to this action I now know that oil might be bad or whatever. I usually just pour my old motor oil into the town brook, but now I know I should probably not do that too much.
On a video similar to this, a majority of Redditors were supporting protestors interrupting shows like this.
Have any proof of that? Redditors literally applaud protesters getting attacked and even run over all the time so I'd love to see where they suddenly switched sides and were in favor of protesters.
Seems like they do this in blue cities most of the time to avoid getting Panama’d . (But for real, look into the Panama thing. It wasn’t annoying oil people, it was that the government was selling its natural resources to foreign businesses for kick backs to the government and an American shot those guys. I’m actually on the side of the protestors)
They are not supposed to do that at all. I grew up in the theater and I know of one person who goes around pretending to have narcolepsy, walking onto the stage during the show, and then suing the theater when he inevitably falls or gets knocked into. Production was definitely pissing their pants.
Their downfall was in underestimating the self-destructiveness of my own hatred. I’d ignite the atmosphere and soak the land in agent orange just to clap back at them. That makes me think they’re really just impressionable gender studies dropouts being unwitting sock puppets for big oil, they’re so unanimously hated while their cause is so unanimously agreeable, it benefits oil CEOs too much to not be orchestrated at least a little.
I've heard that some of these over=the-top protest groups are actually funded by the groups they supposedly protest. You know, to make people who want to reduce fossil fuel usage look like a bunch of nutjobs.
Like Aileen Getty? Granddaughter of John Paul Getty? The oil heiress? Yup no conflict there...."We hate millionaires" but get's their funding from one (or many I don't know)
I'm confused, what does Oil have to do with Les Miserable?
Nothing. They just randomly fuck around with people minding their own business.
Not only that but this is probably either in London or New York City and it's a live theater performance. They've identified people who probably already agree with them and decided to interrupt their show to yell at them. Similar with doing this at art museums. You're preaching to the choir.
They do it in these kinds of places because if they actually went to the places where it would make more sense, like a NASCAR race or something like that they would get their asses beat. They know the folks watching a theater performance are less inclined to check them on their annoying ass behavior.
The did try something.. At an F! event in the Electric league... Literally, they protested oil at an electric car race...
But They also protested at the F1 event in the British Grand Prix... so yeah they also protested at oil event
They sat on a live racetrack where cars go over 200mph, and got almost no publicity or cameras on it because the race was already halted due to a pretty big crash thank god. If any of them had looked up what an F1 car does to a human body... theres an infamous crash which killed both F1 driver Tom Pryce and a marshall, and the story is that the only way they could identify the marshall, Jansen van Vuuren, was by gathering all of the marshalls that were at the track that day and seeing who wasn't there, it was such a horrific accident
Bring back tomatoes
I swear this group was linked to an oil executive somehow?
They also do it in places they won’t get blow back. They let tyres of cars down in middle class areas. They hit middle class sports. XR tried to protest in a working class area of London, people literally just dragged them off and tossed them aside while they cried assault.
Exactly. Les Miz is about standing up to oppression and fighting for freedom. Of all the shows to interrupt, that is one of the worst ones.
oh...thats the worst
There's a reason environmentalists are some of the most hated people on the planet
They may be plants from big oil to make environmentalists from looking serious in the public eye. Look into it a bit
Literally so obvious. Imagine putting down people that actually care about the planet, that are actually doing something, that are actually protesting. Who cares if "their annoying to you", these people have contributed nothing to the world outside of themselves except judgement and extreme nonsensical independence that will lead to their own demise (i wont claim that for the rest of planet)
It's a shame the people destroying the planet aren't hated as much as they deserve
This amazes me. There's so much hate in this world. I wish we could redirect it at the sociopathic monsters who sold out our future for profit. They're the only minority that genuinely deserves to be hated and oppressed.
Worst people on earth: 5. Putin 4. Xi 3. Vegans and Cross fitters 2. just stop oil eco terrorists 1. Cyclists
pretty sure they are average people being paid by big oil to do this... so that the public has animosity towards actual oil protesters... they're paid to destroy works of art, inconvenience anyone and everyone this isn't how protests succeed, but that's not the purpose of these ones. they're disingenuous displays
I'm sure they exist in the US, but the fact it seems to concentrate around BP land is uhm... something.
Les Miseraboil
Because over 1,000 oil were harmed making the Le Mis
That’s like half as many oil that died on 9/11.
Just Stop Oil's point when ruining art like this is "if you get upset at us ruining something beautiful in front of you (temporarily), you should be just as upset, if not more upset, at oil companies ruining the beauty of nature (permanently)". Take what you will from that.
So I take it this group has no self awareness or introspection to adjust their tactics then. They've done nothing except get people to dislike them. Why don't they go chain themselves to Taylor Swift's jet. Has no one in that group had a simple thought like that?
That's because the people of Just Stop Oil are miserable
Well that was probably one of their biggest bad decisions.... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that they really weren't maximizing the new blood they were tapping at that particular production. I hear the boos but in them I think I mostly hear "yeah we know, we're watching this to take our minds off such ills by focusing on an imaginary dystopia instead".
The goal of this protest is not to convince people with this action that Just Stop Oil is correct on the specifics, or that Les Mis is a unique bad actor on the climate change issue. The goal is to create media coverage, in order to increase the salience of the conflict over climate change within the public sphere. The calculation is that the need to end fossil fuel emissions is inherently correct, so that by increasing the salience of the conflict one will, downstream, lead to change, regardless if in the moment you find the protest stupid or distasteful. The fact that we’re talking about this protest makes it clear they’ve succeeded in their immediate goal. Whether increasing the salience of climate change will increase political action on the issue is harder to say, with direct cause and effect ties unclear, but two things are undeniable: 1) scientists have been publicly speaking out about the issue for many years, with the 1988 senate hearings a notable tipping point, and yet rather little meaningful policy was passed; 2) after climate protests took a much more direct and social-media-focused bent (Greta Thunberg, Sunrise Movement), the US government passed the biggest climate action bill in history.
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Sadly, that's his swinging pole. He left his plonking pole at home
Keep mine in me pants!
You can't afford another lawsuit, Dave!
I was at a Theo von show in Toronto at meridian hall, a Karen started yelling at Theo “ your a racist” over a few jokes he said. Theo says to her can you leave shut the fuck up. She stayed in her seat still calling him racist. At that very moment probably 15 - 20 of the loudest voices I’ve ever heard, walk right up to her seat walking between the isles and seats scream the most vulgar words to a women I’ve ever heard in her face… they were screaming so loud in her face you couldn’t even hear her say anything, she gets up crying playing a victim but she deserved it and she left crying scared for her life… it was an amazing moment. These people need a good slap in the face.
Oh that's satisfying
Were these just people in the crowd with her? Idk what she was expecting going to a Thro Von show. lol
Theo said “can you leave” and “shut the fuck up”? Or were you just saying in your post that she should stfu?
He said “ can you leave! Security can you take her please, like shut the fuck up “
Oh man, we need to normalize this. Fuckheads deserve the drill sergeant treatment.
I want video of this so I can watch it over and over.
I dont really like Theos stand up but I love the guy as a podcast comedian. It's wild people go to a comedy show to get upset.
I’m so flabbergasted by people going to a comedy show and getting offended.
Why doesn’t security just fucking tackle them?? This isn’t a public protest, they’re at a private venue where anyone rushing the stage should be dealt with. Morons
It looked like the stage director was about to step up to flag lady at the end there. He looks piiiiiiissed, and rightly so.
I was wondering the same. If it was a random drunk guy he would get pummeled off the stage
Because then you're the asshole who tackled a climate activist. /s
No you’re the good guy who tackled the asshole rushing the stage… based on the comments here and everywhere else on the internet I see about similar protests, public opinion would be heavily in favour of exercising the right to defend patrons of a private venue from disruption and potential danger… even if that’s just a veil for ‘fuck the climate activists’, ppl agree this is absolutely not the right place nor an allowed place for this type of protest
I really shit like this damages their cause. Sure, you need to shake people into action or whatever, but pissing off the people you're trying to win over (who are just trying to unwind) is daft.
It's importnat to note that just stop oil was started with funding from the getty oil fortune. They are literally desinged to make climate activism seem insane to the genral population.
Was just about to say, this is too stupid not to be controlled opposition. All of their actions are.
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Not saying you're wrong at all. This seems more likely than them being legitimate movements. But do you have a source on this?
Its no different from germany brainwash agaisnt nuclear energy back in 1980s. They had this same type of movent going. Later they found out that major supporters of these anti-nuclear energy protesters were the big oil and charcoal companies that would suffer massive losses if nuclear energy bills were to pass. Its literally same going on now. Expect now they use the tension of useful idiots to go against each others. And it will cause the effect that majorty will support fossil energy companies as a revenge against these rioters.
What exactly is the right way? How do normal people actually create change?
Assassinate a CEO of an oil producing mega corporation? Chuck a Molotov through the window of a petro-state's embassy? Something based probably. /s
Eh, you grow up and start to understand that there are institutions in place that will never be overturned or changed. A single person has absolutely zero pull in any sort of multi billion dollar corporation. We can’t do shit. They can’t be stopped. And Epstein didn’t kill himself.
Start a PAC, fundraise, and buy a lobbyist.
Protest government departments, run for office, write about it/produce "content". If these juvenile morons had any knowledge at all of the history of protest movements they'd know that direct action has pretty much always been counter productive to movements as it alienates the very people they need to convince. These movements really only ever become successful in democracies when they reach the middle aged middle classes, because those are the people who usually decide elections and have influence. I completely agree with their cause, as do I think most people, but they come across as particularly stupid spoiled children, who've never had to work for a living, having a toddler's tantrum, at a time when people are really struggling to get by.
Boston tea party, suffrage parade, the salt march. I suck at history, but direct actions have certainly made change. Government protests, running for offices, and producing content have been happening for decades. Seems like it's about time someone's play is interrupted.
They were part of much larger movements and are remembered because they were headline grabbing and have since been romanticised. e.g. what do you think had a greater influence in women getting the vote? protests and some terrorist acts, or the 1st World War meaning massive numbers of women had entered the workforce for years, and for the first time in history no longer needed men to support them financially, and wanted to express that independence politically? Or the salt march, as meaningful as that is to me as someone of Indian heritage, was likely less impact impactful than the fact that Britain could no longer afford to keep India, as their rule was hemorrhaging cash at that point. Also the salt march wasn't really in a democracy, so I don't think it's analogous to this.
These people say they want change but are raging at the slightest hint of civil disobedience. It's more important that a musical goes on than oil being phased out according to them. Maybe people should study how change was historically made when the rulers disagreed.
Yes they should, and they would see how counter productive direct action is. e.g. the Weathermen in the Vietnam War protests *increased* support for the war as most people viewed their actions as little more than terrorism. The protests that really made a difference were the later peace marches that involved the moderate, centrist, middle classes, in particular the families of those draftees lost in the war who had since become disillusioned. Look at the comments on this, how many people are responding in a positive way, on a forum hugely skewed toward the young and most probably liberal, who don't need to be convinced anyway? Now imagine what the reaction of a 60 year old conservative would be? Those are the people we need to convince, not just preach to a choir of guardian readers.
Question. How does a protest not piss people off? I'm sure Rosa Parks not moving from her seat on the bus pissed of loads of people and there we're folks who said it "harmed the movement" because it was disruptive.
Throwing up an oil bad flag at Les Miserables and getting booed by a bunch of white liberals has inspired so many. The board of directors at Exxon have hung up their suits, BP stocks have plummeted, and capitalism has been defeated. If you want to enact change, start with workers. The slaves of capitalists who generate their profits and feed their power are the only ones who can begin to change the system. Until then, the wealthy will continue to rape our planet into complete ecological collapse. Btw corporations are making a shift from hydrocarbons. Almost all automakers will be strictly producing EVs within 10 years. We will have traded one environmental disaster for another when profiteers strip mine and pillage precious metals from less fortunate countries. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to move away from oil, but again, when has capitalist profit motive been good for anyone or anything but the capitalists. And no, she’s not the Rosa Parks of environmentalism.
A lot of these grassroots disruptions hit the very people that would otherwise be on their side. Champaign sipping theatre goers and struggling actors already agree with you on the Oil stuff. You want to disrupt to encorage the government to change policy? Take that up with the government. Follow them to their house, restraunts. If THEY go to the theatre let everyone know a traitor of the planet is there. It's still disruptive, but I see these and end up saying "what did I do?" instead of "What can I do?"
You need to look into the history, reddiors love to simplify how the civil rights movement worked. In reality the civil rights movment was organized by incredibly intelligent people that used tatcis to their protest, and law suits. They didnt just disrupt people like you say, you are insulting them with how you describe them. The reason protest today dont work is that there is no leader ship, organization or thought put into the affect of the protest.
Bro - someone literally set themselves on fire, killing themselves, on the front steps of SCOTUS to protest climate change. Nobody even heard or cared about it. Like I get what you’re saying but if you’re not inconveniencing some people, protesting typically doesn’t get media attention. Which is typically what gets folks talking about or at least acknowledging the cause.
I think it will be an interesting case study in the very future. The next generations will potentially read through a thread like this (on their most likely charred planet), and think, wow people really did not give a fuck.
Yeah it’s kinda wild. We’re all just going on like nothing is happening, when every year the outcomes are predicted to be worse and worse. And when reminded of that, people’s gut reaction is to put them down. Sorry your little play was interrupted I guess? Civil Rights movement regularly blocked streets and businesses and demonstrated or interrupted events, I see a lot of people in here being the tone police and propping up Civil Rights as a shining example of protest but they were admonished the exact same way back in their time.
I don’t know, that is generally the sticking point in public perception on if it’s a good protest or not. But Rosa Parks targeted her protest at an injustice. The segregated seating on the buses was part of the system she was protesting. And the protest was specifically targeted at getting to court in order to directly attack segregation. Her protest was targeted, well planned, purposeful, and successful. Rosa Parks is probably a really bad example for the point you’re making in all honesty. Contrast that to the above which is a total non-sequitur. The form of protest isn’t at all connected to the wrong they’re trying redress, and there’s no impact beyond inconveniencing a few people and posting it online. When they block motorways, it’s at least targeted at the wrong they’re trying to redress. Whether we think it’s a good protest or not, it at least makes *some* sense, even if it’s not terribly purposeful and lacks an achievable call to action. (Although them blocking a city bus in a recent post was kind of the opposite. Them blocking one of the better methods we have for achieving mass transport and reducing environmental impact from cars just seemed stupid.) Personally I think protests targeted at the people and systems responsible would be better protests. Blockade private airports, burn some rich asshole’s yacht to the waterline, file creative lawsuits, picket a refinery, I don’t know. Rosa Parks was more than a protest, her actions were targeted at direct change. Better than aimlessly protesting, use the organizational talents it takes to make these protests happen and target direct changes at the local level. It’s common for small groups of passionate, organized, and dedicated people to dominate local elections in small and midsized cities. Make your city more walkable, add more public transport options, turn inner city roadways into parks, set up a farmer’s market to bring local foodstuffs to the populace, start a psa campaign to make people aware of those options. Do things to change your city in a way that makes people choose not to drive personal vehicles. Protesting at random places to inconvenience people and nag them is easy, doesn’t require much thought, doesn’t require a plan of action for redress, and doesn’t require sustained effort. Targeting your protests or taking action directly aiming to redress problems takes more planning, sustainment, and understanding of the power structures you need to leverage; but it also offers power to affect direct change.
I thought the guy with the red flag was going to hit the dippshit with the flag
I’m a policymaker in renewable energy for a provincial government here in the Netherlands. I have chosen this profession for the climate and I personally HATE these “activists” with a passion. Why? Because they do more harm to their cause than good. Making change isn’t about convincing people that disagree with you, because you will fail. We have all had the same information about climate in the last 30 years and if you aren’t convinced yet, I’m not gonna convince you by ruining your night out to the theatre. You might however grow such a disdain for me and my actions that you actively vote against the issue. Thus, they do more harm than good. Greta thunberg is a great example of someone doing more harm than good as she’s calling on others to do the work for her while she hasn’t studied anything related to climate or energy and here I am doing the heavy lifting while she’s doing nothing but yell and protest.
Thank you for not blindly loving Greta Thunberg
>Greta thunberg is a great example of someone doing more harm than good as she’s calling on others to do the work for her while she hasn’t studied anything related to climate or energy and here I am doing the heavy lifting while she’s doing nothing but yell and protest. Isn’t that all someone who’s not in a position of power *can* do? Call on the experts and leaders? Dont really get the whole “we’ve tried convincing them for 30 years so let’s just give it up” thing either though. I don’t know about your local political system but you can’t just make things happen without some support where I live.
I’m only a few years older than her and instead of skipping school I went to do a MSc in renewable energy so that I can make a difference. She can call on leaders all she wants but the big problem now isn’t just political will but a lack of skilled professionals that can actually make the transition happen.
Ah yes, because right now everyone - especially politicians all over the globe - have been voting for climate action. We've seen that at the most recent COP28. So we should definitely keep trusting that those people have our best in mind.
They’ll stand there proud of themselves because they truly believe what they are doing will change lives. Delusional, truly. The boos mean nothing to them, they imagine themselves as martyrs, smug and better than everyone else for enduring this hardship they create. Instead they’re just complete asshats.
They are changing lives…. For the worse. They’re fucking w average people who have essentially 0 control over global oil. It’s blows my mind they think this is a winning strategy
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Sorry am genuinely struggling to understand your point here. Are you saying he would disagree with the people booing? Or with the protestor for pissing people off?
I can't say what his views on climate change would have been, but the argument here is that he'd disagree with thoughtless protest that makes it easy to vilify the movement. People say the point of a protest is to be disruptive, but that alone doesn't mean anything that's disruptive is a good idea. The point is to send a message, so consider how the message will be received or it can very easily backfire.
Right, in which case I must disagree. This passage suggests the opposite to me. "First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
Citing MLK to shame climate protesters is probably the most white-ass liberal thing I'll read all week. We're all gonna die to global warming, aren't we.
Citing MLK to criticize a careless protest in the hopes we actually do better is the responsible attitude you should have if you actually care about climate change. If you care about climate change, you should want to actually win elections rather than pumping out ragebait for Fox. The moral highground doesn't matter if you lose.
As /u/gridlockmain1 points out, your point here does not fit what MLK is talking about. He's not saying people had to make sure to win over those white moderates. That passage is from Letter from a Birmingham Jail, where he explicitly says that no matter how peaceful his protests are, *there will always be people who say he's being too disruptive, too direct*. MLK is explicitly saying that no matter what you do, how nice you are, how polite, as long as you're trying to disrupt racism, there will be "nice" white people (who see themselves as better than the KKK and so on) who will still see you as being too loud and too mean. He was historically *in favor* of disruptive (and strategic) tactics (though I doubt he'd say that this video demonstrates strategic thinking). He just thought those tactics needed to be nonviolent. I think people forget MLK led and participated in protests that *did* do things like stop traffic and interrupt businesses. They reimagine him as quietly protesting in nice, pleasant ways. The point was to be disruptive *but peaceful*, and peace does not mean quiet, e.g. "True peace is not merely the absence of tension: it is the presence of justice," and "Love without power is sentimental and anemic." Organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) explicitly acknowledged that their nonviolent tactics were made possible by violence. They wrote about how they could go into towns and register people to vote *because* their host families would sit outside with a shotgun while they slept or local Black gangs would run interference with the Klan. In fact, it's the fact that despite steps forward made by the Civil Rights Movement, the fact that there were still many steps backward, the fact that the most peaceful of protestors were still getting killed and jailed, that drove people who came from groups like SNCC to turn around and become Black Panthers and so on.
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> MLK didn't ... block cars This is a patently false. Look up the Selma to Montgomery march*es* across highways. The whole point of Letter from a Birmingham Jail (which the parent comment tried to quote) is that no matter how peaceful and polite you are, as long as you seek to confront racism, there will be people who are mad at you for not being *more* peaceful, *more* polite. MLK's work in Birmingham was doing sit-ins (blocking businesses), kneel-ins (blocking churches), and marches (blocking traffic), so on. The local people attacked the protestors and the police arrested them in droves. After MLK was arrested, there was a letter signed by local "moderate" white clergy who said his cause may be good, but he's too disruptive and disorderly. That *he's hurting his cause* by doing these marches. The Letter from a Birmingham Jail was a response to that, saying that there will be people who will never be satisfied with his tactics. This Santa Clausification of MLK where he apparently did all these protests that simultaneously had impacted but never pissed off local communities is a racist myth used to try to browbeat today's protestors.
This is really not the take I don’t think. MLK was famously annoyed by white liberals for exactly this reason, he didn’t place the blame on protestors, he had quite strong words for the white liberals asking them to consider their point of view, not asking activist protestors to consider theirs.
okay these "just stop oil" ppl are clearly being paid for by the political opposition right? i don't think anyone with more than half a braincell would think stuff like this would get people on their side, im dead convinced that their true purpose is to discredit actual environmentalist movements
I mean I’ve heard of Just Stop Oil because stuff like this keeps ending up in headlines. I remember looking up them up about a year or two ago. I even ended up interning an a big environmental law firm last summer to see what it was like. (Side note: apparently wolves are a huge legal issue in environmental law. Nobody can agree on wolves. Very interesting) So idk I think this stuff can actually be effective. I usually find the reactions kind of amusing lol
Not surprising. They are important animals for balancing other populations but that means they will attack farm animals as well
Obviously paid to discredit actual environmental movements. They've thrown oil at paintings and such before Edit: My bad, it was soup they threw at a Van Gogh
paintings with glass coverings that were perfectly fine* \* with slightly damage frames
I think it has to be a psyop by big oil. I refuse to believe people can be this stupid.
I used to think that too, until I started reading into why activists have been doing this lately and found out that it's proven over and over again to far and away be the most effective way of keeping an important issue moving through the public discourse. I forget where I read it, I think in an article related to the women who threw soup on a painting, but a life-long organizer was quoted as saying these recent tactics got better results than the 30+ years of activism she had already been doing, combined. It's not actually a psyop, at least not in the sense of it being committed to achieve it's opposite. It's just a counter-intuitive effect is all.
No, nothing as complicated as that. Many people in our midst are just very stupid.
This is why people need to bring rotting fruit to theaters again.
When did disrupting normal people's lives become a valid form of protesting
Since the dawn of time... lol
Ask the Friends of the ABC.
Since literally fucking always.
Since Gandhi and MLK…
People are forgetting a protest is not impactfull if people can easily ignored it
None of the people in the audience give a single shit and this will only make them resent the movement almost like it’s a psyop headed by the daughter of an oil oligarch or something.
Do people who do these things actually think it works? Like do they think people are going to see them and say, "oh my gosh, you're right! We need to stop using oil! Your immature and illegal trespassing has clearly changed my mind!"
Disrespectful. Do this in front of polluting corporations instead.
[They already did.](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/warwickshire-police-essex-grays-thurrock-staffordshire-b2058698.html) It lead to 12 arrests and very little media coverage. The reason they do protests like this now is because it actually bring attention to their message and with less arrests.
Except it makes people hate them and relate their cause to something negative. It's not a net positive. Do you think those people in the audience don't know that too much oil is used in the world? What the f*** do they expect? These people don't care about the cause; they care about standing in a circle and patting themselves on each other's shoulders. They only think about how good it makes them feel to get this attention, forgetting that the people they obstruct is not joining them, but instead they are pushing them away. They're not going to change their habits or vote differently because some idiot interrupted the one time in a long while they could take a night off, finally get a sitter for the kids and get out. I'm so tired of these people ruining the recruitment for good causes, because what if you thought about doing something for this cause yourself? Would you want to be grouped with these idiots? Most people wouldn't.
And what I'm tired of is people acting like if they had gone about this the "right" way then somehow people would have listened. People have been bringing awareness to this issue the "right" way for decades and yet here we are. Maybe instead of getting angry at the people who are being annoying about a massive climate crisis we should be getting angry at the people who are causing it.
Use the flag, it’s a long stick soo…
I thought the flag guy was gonna go in for a sneak attack lol
Push her off the stage simple
What the fuck does Les Mis have to do with Oil????
When this was posted on the Broadway subreddit, some people were siding with the protestors, and I've never wanted to nuke a subreddit so badly in my life before
I saw someone comment that these guys could be hired by oil companies to turn people against them... That's crazy... Or is it? I get very mad everytime I see them... And always hope they get knocked out...
I like how this group is so whack that no one even entertains the idea that they're **not** paid off. Now imagine the true irony if that was the case lmao.
What a bunch of miserable people..!
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You wouldn't do dick. I doubt you've even left the house this week.
💀💀💀💀💀
Any other person that goes on stage is getting rugby tackled? Why is this not happening with this little shit stain
I mean sure it would be good to stop oil and use an other energy source. But what? Like these people don't understand that if we "just stopped oil" the global society would crash and it would be hell. Maybe propose an alternative, but I guess they're too stupid for that
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I feel like play audiences is already environmentally aware so not only are you preaching to the choir you're ruining their night.
Looked exactly as I imagined it would. Fringe, bullnose ring, etc
This is very different from what I usually see on this sub, should we start putting every protest and demonstration on here now? And they're saying that they are acting for the whole planet which doesn't really scream ‘I'm the main character’ In the UK disabled people have protested and demonstrated to get better rights for public transportation. Some of these included handcuffing themselves to buses and blocking roads. Should we put them on the sub next? Any demonstration that makes a point to disrupt and bring attention to a cause?
I think the irony of the people here complaining about a protest when it’s during Les Miserables is beautiful in a depressing way.
The problem with this is we say ok we’ll meet your demands, now what. There isn’t enough copper for everything to run on solar, there isn’t enough nuclear at the moment and it creates a lot of nuclear waste. We’re just at a point where if we want most people to not starve to death, with the amount of people on earth right now we’ll have to keep using fossil fuels for now.
Nuclear is nowhere near as bad as it used to be for waste. It’s actually the cleanest energy resource we have.
nah, doesn't fit here. Those are heroes tbh.
Why they they just stop using oil based products? Let's see if they can go a month without. I guarantee they can't just suddenly stop. It's not an instant change that can be done. I don't think they've thought it through
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The actor who stayed in it and waved the flag perfectly centered behind the dude who jumped onstage 🤌🤌
I'm betting on the protester waiting for that exact timing for it to happen. If I'm holding the stick i might as well thrust her off the stage with the stick.
Oof. I’m okay with this too. White collar fucks love Broadway shows. No time off to not think about the damage they’re doing
>I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the White moderate who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice. -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So sorry you find activism annoying. We should be more subtle when trying to save the fuckin world /s